


Turned to Stone

by gremlinquisitor (suchanadorer)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Beauty and the Beast Elements, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-03 23:55:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17887574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suchanadorer/pseuds/gremlinquisitor
Summary: Fenris doesn’t recall what it is to miss someone. He knows that he must have had parents, perhaps siblings, possibly even friends - if his temperament was of another sort before. But for as far back as his memory stretches, he has been alone. No one has come into his life, and so no one has left, and so he can not miss them.But as he watches Sebastian’s expression contort in the light of the mirror, he begins to understand, and to realize that he will soon feel that same emotion.A Beauty and the Beast AU, where Fenris is cursed by a Tevinter magister to turn to stone if he can not love and be loved in return.





	Turned to Stone

Fenris doesn’t recall what it is to miss someone. He knows that he must have had parents, perhaps siblings, possibly even friends - if his temperament was of another sort before. But for as far back as his memory stretches, he has been alone. No one has come into his life, and so no one has left, and so he can not miss them.

But as he watches Sebastian’s expression contort in the light of the mirror, he begins to understand, and to realize that he will soon feel that same emotion.

“My parents, my brothers--” He reaches out to touch the surface of the mirror, and Fenris sees the light swirl on his face as the image changes. “They’re under attack, all of them.”

There is confusion and panic in his voice, and in his eyes, as wide and blue and afraid as they had been the day they’d met. But this time, he is not afraid of Fenris.

It is a small comfort.

“You should go to them,” he mutters, wrapping his arms around his body as he takes a step closer to Sebastian. “I’ve seen you train. You can save them.”

The words sink in, and the lines of Sebastian’s face change again as he turns from the mirror. The confusion is still there, but the fear cracks open to something softer as he searches Fenris’ face.

“You would let me go? You mean… I’m free?”

Sebastian has been free for far longer than he knows, but to try to explain that to him would take time he doesn’t have, and words Fenris isn’t sure he’s ready to say.

“Yes, Sebastian. Go, your family needs you.” It’s truth offered without malice, without mention that Fenris needs as well. This is no time for selfishness, even as his heart strains in his chest, desperate to slip its bonds and go with Sebastian where he will.

Sebastian glances at the mirror one last time, then steps away, into Fenris’ space, so close that he can smell the smoke from the fireplace, the lingering scent of fresh bread - signs of a day spent together, interrupted by Fenris’ granting Sebastian’s one wish.

Sebastian’s hand hovers over his upper arm a moment before settling there, and Fenris stiffens at the touch, but doesn’t move away. Instead he watches, wild-eyed, as Sebastian leans in to place a soft kiss at the corner of his mouth. It’s little more than a brush of lips, their noses bumping against each other.

“Thank you for understanding, Fenris.”

His eyes flick up to lock with Fenris’, and then he turns away, and as Fenris listens to his footsteps down the stairs, and the sound of the door closing, he understands anew how it feels to miss someone.

It starts as a trickle, as him standing, glaring at the mirror, as if the situation is its fault somehow, betraying him by showing Sebastian the truth. He damns the magic that powers it, the mages that created it, and his own weak heart for letting Sebastian look.

It worsens when he turns from the doorway, returning to the room in the abandoned Hightown mansion that he had come to think of as his, then theirs. He picks up his wine glass and smiles to himself when he sees Sebastian’s, still half-full on the table. It aches in his cheeks, all of him somehow wound too tightly but also threatening to fall apart at any moment, and he hears Sebastian’s voice in his mind.

_“The Chantry uses wine in ceremonies, but I haven’t had any in years. But with you, tonight… a little…”_

A book lies open on the table, their tutoring session paused when Sebastian had mentioned his family. It’s a favorite, one that Fenris has learned by heart thanks to Sebastian’s patience and guidance, his desire to help and to share the things that he believes in. They were qualities he’d shown from the day they met, offering to take his brothers’ place in the mansion, to be prisoner in their stead. This particular tale, that of an elven slave who rebelled against an empire, is outside of the Chantry’s accepted teachings. Somehow Fenris thinks that that suits the two of them, the warrior elf and the human touched by the Maker.

“A great hymn rose over Valarian Fields gladly proclaiming: Those who had been slaves were now free.” Fenris runs one hand over the words, raises his glass in a toast before tipping his head back and draining what wine remains. It seems to run through him, not pooling in his stomach but flowing through cracks, and he pauses, almost expects the dull tap of drops on the carpet. His heart has broken open inside his chest, spilling out to fill the hole left behind by Sebastian’s absence.

Time passes without a care for the pain of one life, and Fenris finds himself removed from the world again, but this time there is no peace in his solitude. He is uncomfortable in his own skin, as if wrapped in ill-fitting cloth, and spends his days prowling the mansion in search of relief, though he does not know what to seek, what form it could possible take except that of the man he longs for. He sees Sebastian in the corner of his eye, in shadows and in the glint of sunlight on a windowpane. There is no solace in books, in food or wine, in the cold night air breathed deep on the roof. None of his past pleasures can offer him anything now to compare to the feel of lips on his skin and the scent of fresh bread. With each day that passes, he feels the magister’s curse settle in his bones, the lyrium under his skin hardening to stone.

Sleep offers the only reprieve that he can find, a way to leave behind the pain that he feels in his soul as well as his body. Cold, cramped fingers clutch the Book of Shartan to his chest when he wakes in darkness, the fire little more than embers in the hearth. He aches and he longs, and he wishes that he did not have to understand what it is to miss someone. There is a ticking at the back of his throat when he breathes, a part of the inescapable stiffness that will soon overtake him.

A figure moves in the failing light, and Fenris can do little more than watch, his heart unwilling to summon the intensity of emotion needed to break the lyrium’s hold on his body. Let them come, let them take him.

“Fenris, what’s happened to you?”

His heart lurches to life with such ferocity that he’s left coughing, gasping for air as Sebastian crosses the room and falls to his knees beside the bed. Gently, he pulls the book out of Fenris’ hands and holds them with his own.

“You’re freezing cold. Here, I’ll get the fire going.” He’s moving to leave again before Fenris can protest. The best he can do is refuse to let go of his hands, keeping Sebastian close.

“It’s all right,” Fenris mumbles, willing his eyes to focus as he seeks Sebastian’s gaze in the darkness. “I knew this would happen eventually. I’m only sorry you’re here to see me this way. I… I didn’t think you’d come back.”

Sebastian pulls one hand free and reaches out to brush Fenris’ hair back from his face. Where once he might have started at the intensity of the touch, now he finds it too distant through his stony skin. He wants to know Sebastian’s warm and softness, not the faint echo that reaches him as hands move over his arms and face.

“Of course I came back. My family is safe, but… I couldn’t just leave you, Fenris. Never.”

“I missed you.” His whisper turns into another cough, and he is powerless to fight against it as Sebastian pulls him up to sit before settling down on the bed beside him. He rubs at Fenris’ skin as if he thinks that he is simply cold. “I’m glad I got to see you again, before…”

He can not bring himself to tell Sebastian the truth of it, even now. Fenris knows his heart, and it would only provoke an outpouring of well-meant platitudes that Sebastian might even think were sincere. It would warm Fenris to hear them, but they would not be enough.

“Before what? I don’t understand.”

There is a plea in Sebastian’s voice that Fenris can not answer. His lips and throat fail him, and he can only look back at Sebastian and try to make him understand. He has done nothing wrong, and brought more joy than he can ever know.

_In the long hours of the night when hope has abandoned me, I will see the stars and know your light remains._

“Fenris, please, answer me.”

He can neither fight nor give in when Sebastian wraps his arms around him.

“I love you.” The whisper comes from lips pressed to his ear, in a voice that fills the empty spaces inside him, a warm breath that coaxes life into the stone he has become.

It starts in his chest, softening and giving as heat returns. His heart beats in time with Sebastian’s, with that force that pulls him back from the cold and the dark. His head falls forward to Sebastian’s shoulder and he takes a shuddering breath, arms clumsy as he returns the embrace, clawing at the fabric of his shirt, trying to gain purchase and pull himself closer, and Sebastian tightens his hold on him, clinging to him as Fenris’ flesh yields and everything is touch and contact and warmth.

“I love you, I love you…” Fenris murmurs it over and over again, his forehead tucked into the spot where Sebastian’s neck meets his shoulder, hot tears stinging his eyes as he revels in yet another new emotion, this one far superior though no less intense. To love and to be loved in return is not something that Fenris can recall, but as he listens to Sebastian’s gentle words and feels his fingers combing through his hair, he knows that it is a feeling he will never forget.


End file.
